yours, in time
by ecstaticallygray
Summary: Three years ago, she ran away. From him, from Riverdale, from her old life. But after the release of Jughead's first book, Betty finds herself attending a reading event in an unfamiliar bookstore, unable to stay away. Three-shot.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello! Still not over these two and I finally have vacations, so here's another story yayy. This will be in three chapters so stay tuned for more!**

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He had always been a beautiful boy with beautiful words and as she stepped into the bookstore, heart thudding wildly in her chest, she thought that his words might actually be what she missed the most. His touch, his smile, certainly. But even now, after so much time had passed, she had flashes of moments where she would recall something beautiful that he had said or written and the words would come to her with such clarity, she knew she would never be able to forget them, not even if she never saw him again, not even if she tried.

 _You're so much stronger than all the white noise._

The bookstore was reasonably packed and people milled about, more teenagers than older, chatting about the new captivating story that had recently hit the shelves. Her own copy of the book was clutched tightly in her hands, spine cracked thoroughly, corners already fraying from the many times she had flipped through the pages after the first time. Looking for specific moments, rereading parts again and again until her eyes ached and her body begged for sleep.

She walked further into the bookshop unsteadily, wandering behind a shelf to hide herself from view. She didn't know whether this was a good idea. No, she was certain this was definitely not a good idea. But reading the book had cracked open something inside her chest, something she had spent the last three years running from, and when she had seen the date and time of the signing event happening here in New York, she hadn't let herself think. She had forcefully stopped herself from thinking, just woken up the next day, taken a bus and now she was here. Not thinking, still bleeding, barely breathing.

 _I'm gonna go blind if you keep smiling at me like that, Betty Cooper._

It took her one long sweep of the room to spot him, but then again, to her eyes, it seemed second nature. He was the center of attention today, standing at the end of the room where a long booth had been set up, with a few other authors sharing his spotlight. And god, he looked _good_. Same dark hair, same beanie, a shy smile twitching at the corner of his lips as he talked to someone with a copy of his book in their hands. But he looked so much different too, a picture out of time, taller, healthier, and so _bright_ , like all the time she had spent hiding in her darkness, he had only managed to step out and conquer his.

Her eyes drank him up, even from her hidden spot, snagging on every part of him changed and unchanged. Maybe this could be enough. Maybe she could observe him for a few moments longer and then leave, some part of her fulfilled. Maybe she should never have showed up.

There was a considerable queue in front of his booth already, new excited fans clutching untouched copies and flipping through pages, waiting for their turn with the brilliant new author. _Mind over Murder_ hadn't hit the bestsellers list yet but it had generally been very well received, especially amongst the young-adult readers, where it was stirring up quite a name for itself. Even though it was hard for her to be objective, she completely understood the appeal. The murder investigation itself was masterfully woven from the first page to the last, but it wasn't the main attraction of the book, not even Riverdale's retro small town setting, or its mysterious yet cliché undertones.

It was the characters that gave life to the story, himself and his friends that he had managed to capture so perfectly on page that when she had read the book for the first time, she had felt like she was reliving her life rather than reading about it from paper. The characters who were immature and cliché and broken and imperfect. But so, so _real_.

It was brutally honest. But honestly perfect. And she wouldn't have it any other way.

 _Look at me –hey, look at me! There are no parts of you that I do not love._

She traveled inconspicuously through the shelves, wondering what she was really doing but attention too invested in him to care. He looked so much more mature than when she had last seen him but she couldn't pinpoint exactly what had changed; maybe it was how his shoulders had filled out; or maybe it was the way he was holding himself a bit straighter, like he knew what he had accomplished and was proud of it. His hair was shorter, that characteristic curl still peeking out from underneath his beanie that made her ache with nostalgia. The urge to see his face up close was sudden and intense, making her clutch the book in her hands more tightly. God, what was she even _doing_?

She ran her fingers along a row of books, pretending to browse. Her heart felt like a fresh bruise, a nauseating mix of longing, misery and guilt churning restlessly in her gut. There was a part of her that wanted to march up to him and face him once and for all, and then there was the other part, the part that was already begging to cower, warning her to leave before things got out of hand, before she had a chance of tilting the precarious balance that she managed to establish in her life. She released a quick breath, standing on her tiptoes to peek over the low shelves-

"Betty Cooper?"

With a small gasp, she turned around, ponytail flipping in the air, heart picking up speed like a deer caught in headlights. Standing in front of her was a teenage girl, tall and lanky, with curly black hair cut short and an outfit that seemed like a careful ensemble of all black. Her eyes were large and green, and her thin mouth was twisted up at one corner, almost unpleasantly.

Betty's throat suddenly felt too dry, "J-Jellybean?"

The girl tilted her head, looking completely unfazed and analyzing Betty like she was revaluating her opinion about her brother's ex on the spot. Her eyes flicked up and down, judging Betty's pastel attire, and then landing on the book in her hands. "So you've read it," Jellybean concluded.

Betty couldn't tell anything from her voice, or even her face. But then again, she couldn't tell anything about Jellybean at all. She had met the girl only a few times in the almost two-and-a-half years that she and Jughead had been together, and that girl hardly compared to the teen in front of her now. Three years was a long time, Betty knew. Especially in teenage years.

"I have," Betty replied, unsteadily. She felt the uncertainty knocking at the fragile façade of her new life, small cracks flacking across the surface and spreading. Even though she had marched herself up to the bookstore without second thought, some part of her hadn't expected to be confronted by anyone, let alone by Jughead's sister. But she was in too deep now. Panic welling up in the pits of her stomach, she plastered on a half-genuine smile and said, "How have you been, Jellybean?"

Jellybean's gaze bore into hers, direct and unblinking, "Why are you here, Betty Cooper?"

Her tone wasn't accusing, rather, it was too flat, too neutral, like she was genuinely curious.

"I-" Betty started, nails digging into the cover of her book, "I don't know."

Jellybean let out a little snort. She was still analyzing her, trying to figure out her intentions, and her eyes were so much like Jughead's, Betty almost wanted to look away. "You broke my brother's heart," she said bluntly.

Betty winced. Her eyes flashed to the rings on Jellybean's fingers, three on each, and then to a small fandom button at her collar, the reference on which she couldn't recognize. She coughed even though her throat was clear and then said, "I…it wasn't intentional."

Jellybean raised an incredulous eyebrow. With her tall stance and arms crossed haughtily over her chest, Betty got the feeling that the teen didn't have a hard time getting others to do exactly what she wanted. She passed Betty an almost condescending look and then said, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

And against all absurdity, Betty found herself smiling.

Peeved, Jellybean frowned, "What?"

"Nothing," Betty said, shaking her head, "You learnt that from Jughead."

"Maybe," Jellybean replied ominously. Without warning, she reached forwards and plucked the book out of Betty's hands, ignoring the blonde's yelp of surprise. She flicked the book open and randomly started flipping through the pages, "Underlined and dog-eared," she observed, with a hum. "Very thorough."

Betty felt unexpectedly vulnerable as her eyes followed Jellybean's fingers thumbing through the pages. The parts she had underlined felt like a culmination of everything that was important to her, her regrets, her guilt, her happiest moments. All encapsulated in a few lines.

Jellybean stopped flipping at a random page, eyes passing over underlined words, "What was your favorite part, Bella Corner?"

 _Bella Corner was a sunflower, her bright yellow petals hiding a dark center. And I don't know what I was drawn to more- her brightness that seemed like salvation, or her darkness that was my soul mirrored back at me._

"I don't know," Betty lied. The name Bella Corner seemed to hang in the air, her alter ego on page, the Betty of the past. The girl Jughead Jones had fallen in love with. "What was yours?"

"The part where Jughead called our dad out on his shit," Jellybean said. "Or the part where he got in a fist fight on his birthday. Or that brief period of time when he and Bella broke up."

Even though the words were meant to be biting, there was no real punch behind them. Betty couldn't figure out whether Jellybean was actually mad at her for what she had done, or she felt like she had to be, for her brother's sake. "Good to know you were rooting for us," she tried to joke.

Jellybean glanced up at her once with her round eyes, "I was," she admitted, turning another page of the book. Even her movements reminded Betty of Jughead, the way she held the book a certain distance from her body, or how her long limbs filled up space around her in a manner that just felt natural. "When you first got together, I didn't think you were his type." A little smirk lifted the corner of her mouth to one side, "He told me you were a cheerleader and I laughed in his face –and I was _eleven_."

Betty felt a little laugh escape her mouth, almost a surprised exhale. The knots in her chest faintly released their hold.

"But then I met you," Jellybean's voice was quieter, more serious. "And he seemed happy, you know? So I abandoned the elaborate plan I had fabricated to make him dump you on the bus over to Riverdale."

"Very generous of you," Betty said, even though she couldn't help the smile that spread across her lips at the memory of a younger Jellybean giving her a similar version of the stink-eye she had received just moments ago.

"Doesn't seem to matter much now, does it?"

Betty's lingering smile disappeared in a sigh. They both stepped away to let a man pass them by through the shelves and Betty couldn't help but note the faint look of satisfaction on Jellybean's face. It seemed like the teen had decided that making her feel simultaneously guilty and uncomfortable was too fun an opportunity to pass up. She continued flipping through the book and Betty barely restrained herself from reaching forwards and ripping it back from the girl's hands.

"So," Jellybean started, still not glancing up, "you're here to talk to him?"

"I don't know," Betty said, once again. She let out a small, fake laugh, "I didn't exactly think this through."

Giving her a dubious glance, Jellybean deliberated her for a few seconds and then grabbed her arm, starting to pull her through the shelves, "Come with me, Betty Cooper."

For a moment, Betty thought that Jellybean was about to drag her towards Jughead and she panicked but then she realized that they were headed in the opposite direction of where the booth was set up. Jellybean led her towards one of the large reading tables set towards the back of the store, pulled up a chair and plopped down, "Sit," she ordered.

Betty sat down. Here too, a few people milled about, mostly those who were not interested in the event going on at the front. She clasped her hands on top of the table, trying to keep her fingers from fidgeting.

Jellybean lounged back against her chair, ankle resting on knee, looking at her in deliberation. "So, is this your end-of-the-movie moment? Where the heroine realizes that the hero was the love of her life and knows she fucked up?"

If it were someone other than Jellybean, Betty would have been offended. But even though they hardly know each other, they had once been two of the most important people of Jughead's life and Betty realizes that that connection was enough for them to actually _know_ one another, even with their limited interaction. Betty still remembered all the little tales Jughead had told her about the two siblings over time and she knew that Jellybean probably knew such tidbits about her too. Even with the distance between them, the siblings had talked relatively often and she knew how much Jughead doted on her little sister, how much he wished that they could live in the same house.

Betty cleared her throat a bit uncomfortably, changing the subject, "Jughead…is he still living in Boston?"

Eyes still annoyingly perceptive, Jellybean gave a reluctant nod, "He took a semester off to go on this book tour, but he'll probably start again after the summers."

Betty nodded slowly even though she had already figured this out without Jellybean's confirmation. Even with radio silence from her end, she had never had the guts to unfollow him from any of her social media. He barely ever posted, a habit that had not changed since they were in high school, but ever since his book deal had become a real thing, he had gotten more active on Instagram, giving updates on the book-related things and some life-related things too. And she would be lying if she said that she didn't spend a little too much time staring intensively at each photo every time one popped up.

Betty continued hesitantly, "And FP…he's doing okay?"

Jellybean raised her eyebrows. "Well enough," she said. She put her chin on a hand and leaned forwards, flippantly candid. "Dad's always had a soft spot for you, you know. I used to be so jealous of that."

Betty was caught off-guard, "What?"

"Your senior year," Jellybean recalled. "Mom and I came to Riverdale a few months before Jug's graduation. She dragged me with her to one of her old friend's and when I came back to the trailer, you were there. The three of you, Jug, dad, and you, sitting around the table like a proper little family, eating some fancy roast chicken or shit. Dad –he never quite figured out how to be around me, but you…he treated you like a daughter."

The words got caught in her throat, her mind immediately flashing back to the night in question. It had been a month since FP had gotten out of prison and Jughead had gotten back to living with his father after almost two years with his foster family. He had grown to love them too but he had been ecstatic that he was getting a few months to live with his dad before he went off to college. For those few weeks, things had been calmer, the whirlwind of their lives settling into gentler waters. She remembered him dragging her into his room in the small trailer afterwards, the words he had whispered against her skin in the dark.

 _I am such a fucking goner for you, Betts._

"I-," Betty licked her lips. "I'm sure that's not true, Jellybean,"

Jellybean shrugged. "He still doesn't really know but he tries I guess."

Betty's heart gave a little pang at the words. It had been more than a month since she had last talked to her own father and the same couldn't be said for Hal Cooper. Hal's problem had always been not trying enough.

Again, Betty tried to shift away from the subject. It seemed like Jellybean had no qualms in bringing up hard, uncomfortable truths and Betty –she was still in the process of comprehending the situation she had landed herself in to contemplate all the hard, uncomfortable truths of her life. "It's –it's really nice that you're here right now," she said, hesitantly, "for Jughead."

Jellybean started thumbing through Betty's copy of _Mind over Murder_ again, more lazily this time, and not like a few moments ago when she was trying to uncover all of Betty's secrets. "I guess," she said, a small acknowledgement of Betty's statement.

And then, just as suddenly, she closed the book shut and passed it back to Betty over the table, heaving a large exaggerated sigh, "I really wanted to dislike you, Betty," she declared like it was a large inconvenience. "But fortunately for you, reading the book made me realize that you were there for my brother when no one else was. So instead, I'm going to help you."

Betty opened her mouth once, closed it, and then said, "Help me?"

Jellybean nodded, "You're obviously very confused. So, I'm going to try to clear things up for you."

"…Okay?"

"Uh-hmm," Jellybean said, almost enthusiastically. She leaned back even further down her chair, getting comfortable. "Let's rehash things a bit. So you and Jug were together for more than two years, happy, in love, despite the shitstorm that followed the death of Jason Blossom. But then something happened with your family which caused you to go into a downward spiral. You cut off all ties with Riverdale and then ran off to college to escape." She paused, gauging Betty's reaction with the barest raise of an eyebrow, "How am I doing so far?"

Betty tried her hardest to keep her face from flinching. It was a bastardized version of the story but nevertheless, it was the truth. It was almost refreshing, how there was no beating around the bush with Jellybean. Veronica, Archie, Kevin, they had been too compassionate, too empathizing and she suddenly _wanted_ the harsh reality that Jellybean was throwing at her face. She wanted someone to tell her how unfair it was what she had done, how cruel she had been.

"Accurate," she said, the waver in her voice giving her away.

Jellybean didn't blink. "Jug never really told me what made you run away," she admitted. "But it must have been something bad."

She thought of those few days, awash by memories she hadn't revisited in months. They didn't seem as painful as they once were, but there was still a bitterness associated to them, to the events that had finally made her snap like a rubber pulled tight. She couldn't pretend that she was mentally healthy before that time either, but somehow she had been managing. Until it had all become too much.

"It was," Betty said, "But I wasn't exactly the picture of mental health before that either."

Jellybean almost look impressed at her admission. "And now?" Jellybean asked, the first bit of caution Betty observed from her since the conversation started. "You want to…make amends?"

Betty sighed. She flipped open her copy of _Mind over Murder_ , rubbing the corner of the first page between her finger and thumb. "I didn't know what I was expecting when I bought the book," she started, eyes flickering downwards, intently observing the tabletop. Maybe trying to explain to Jellybean what she was doing here would make it clearer for herself too. "He had let me read some parts of it, you know. When we were in school. But some parts of it, he kept to himself like a well-guarded secret, like our first kiss. He said he wanted it to be a surprise if the book ever got published. I thought it was so unbearably cheesy and so unlike him, but then I understood the real reason behind it. He wanted all those parts to be perfect. And at that time, they hadn't been."

 _And then because she looked so distraught, because I wanted so immensely to take away her worries, and because I had never really stood a chance anyway, I took her face between my hands and kissed her. It felt like a breath released from my lungs. I didn't realize how long I had wanted to kiss Bella Corner until, standing in the middle of her pastel bedroom, she kissed me back._

Jellybean was looking intently at Betty, taking in each word. No matter how close the two siblings were, this was a side of Jughead that Jellybean had never known.

"When I read it, I thought all those parts were perfect, of course," Betty said with a small laugh. "I used to be his biggest critic, but I was his biggest fan too." Now that she had started, she realized that she was a tap opened, all her feelings rushing out at once. She couldn't believe that she was confiding in Jellybean of all people, but then again, it made sense. They shared an unusual connection, but a connection nevertheless. "So much time had passed, and I missed him of course, but it was a scar more than a fresh wound. But when I read the book-" Betty released a breath and it seemed to shudder through her ribcage. The words came to her then and suddenly everything made a lot more sense. "I realized I had never really gotten over any of it."

For a few seconds, Jellybean didn't say anything and then, "Closure," she mused. "Never knew it was a real thing."

Betty supposed that closure was exactly the word to be used to describe her situation but she didn't like how it sounded. So final. So perfectly complete. Like after she had resolved her grievances, she could put her past in a neat little box and shove it at the back of her closet, never to be seen again.

"The event finishes at one," Jellybean informed, a bit softer after Betty's sudden deluge of feelings. "You should talk to Jug. I don't think you're the only one that needs closure."

"What-" she accidentally pulled too hard at the page, crinkling the corner that she had been fidgeting with. "what do you mean?"

"Oh, please," Jellybean rolled her eyes. Leaning forwards, she reached for the book and then flipped over a side, landing at the page just before the first chapter. "Let's not pretend that this isn't for you."

Betty gulped, staring at the familiar words of the short dedication. When she had opened the book for the first time, her hands were already shaking, heart caught in her throat. And then she had read the two words, printed in a neat italics on an otherwise blank page and she had stopped. Stopped altogether, frozen to the spot, fingers hovering in mid-air with a stillness that felt unnatural.

 _For Juliet._

Jellybean rolled her eyes again, though this time the gesture was more affectionate, "I can't believe my brother turned into such a sap. It's disgusting."

Betty cracked a smile. "He was always a big romantic at heart," she said, a little hoarsely. Her eyes flickered back to the page, tracing over the small print. It still seemed a little unreal that those two words were written inside every single copy of the book in circulation. That there were people probably states away, flipping open the cover, briefly pausing to read the two lonesome words before turning the page, not knowing the world of meaning trapped inside them, not knowing how the small phrase had managed to completely shatter her heart.

And maybe this was the reason. Not closure, not her unresolved past, but these two small words written for the sole intent that she was going to read them and she would _know_. That he still thought of her, that he was as torn up over what had happened as she was, and maybe even that he forgave her. It was like a beacon, a honing signal, calling her here, transporting her to her past.

"I was a little miffed out," Jellybean said. "I always thought he would dedicate his first book to me. But first love trumps sisterly affection, I guess."

"I should do it," Betty said suddenly. "I should talk to him."

Jellybean took her abrupt outburst in stride, grinning slightly. "And here I thought my job was going to be more difficult."

Betty felt tingly all over, anxious at even the prospect. What would she say? What would she _do_? She supposed that the right place to begin would be with an apology but she wasn't sure how she would go about doing such a thing. I'm sorry I completely shut you out for the past three years, but I'm here now, so let's grab lunch? And he had his event today…wouldn't it be selfish of her to just show up and ruin it for him?

" _Nuh uh_ ," Jellybean interrupted her thought process, tone exasperated. "I can _see_ you backpedaling, Betty. Suck it up and go talk to my brother. I'm going to tell him that you were here anyway."

"You are?" Betty blurted out, before she realized. Of course she was.

Jellybean didn't even bother to grace her with a reply. She leaned closer, "Look Betty," she started. "The truth is I don't really know you. We don't really know each other. And even after all that happened, Jug turned out doing wonderfully for himself, which even I can recognize." She looked so serious to Betty then, her eyes holding a maturity beyond her years. It was so reminiscent of the way Jughead had seemed during their high-school years, like he was an old, tired soul trapped into the body of a teenager. "But I know that you –this, whatever happened, it's still one of the biggest regrets of his life. And if he can have a chance to get over it then –well, I'm all for it."

Betty blinked, ignoring the stinging in her eyes. She realized that she had been so focused on her own issues and guilt that she had neglected to think about what Jughead must have been feeling after all this time. Maybe it had to stop being about _her_ now. She had to do this for him –for both of them. She didn't know what would come out of any of it, but after how much she had loved him, how ardently he had loved her back, she had to, at the very least, apologize; try to explain herself.

"You're right," she nodded, eyes flickering to the table. "You're right. He –he didn't deserve what I did. And he doesn't deserve to feel bad over it either." She swallowed up her anxiety and gathered her courage, flexing her hands to prevent her old habit from resurfacing, "I- I'll talk to him once the event is over."

Jellybean was quiet for a few seconds before she said, with an approving lilt to her voice, "Good."

Unceremoniously, she stood up, tucking her short hair behind her ears, and brushing a suede boot against the back of her calf before replacing it back to the ground. "I gonna head back before Jug starts wondering where I am," she said. Giving Betty, the barest hint of a smile, she turned around and started to walk away, "Don't bail out, Betty Cooper."

Betty didn't know how much longer she sat there, heart thudding in her ears as she gathered her resolve. Her mind riffled through all the possible scenarios that the encounter could lead to. Either he could refuse to speak to her out flat. Or he could give her a chance and that could end in one of the most awkward conversations of her life. Or something completely, entirely different could happen: he could forgive her and they could once again be….friends.

 _Just because you're afraid doesn't mean you aren't the bravest person I know._

The clock on her phone almost nearing twelve thirty, she stood up before she could convince herself otherwise. Slowly, she started making her way through the bookstore back towards the front, her book clutched tightly to her chest, heart once again picking up speed. The queue in front of his booth had shortened considerably but there were still a few people left. Betty slid in, the last in line, behind a guy whose tall frame would surely block her from Jughead's line of sight. She didn't want him to know she was there until she could talk to him directly to his face.

Slowly the queue shortened, as more and more people got their turn with him. Even though she was still trying to remain inconspicuous, she couldn't stop her eyes from latching onto him, observing each and every interaction. His disposition was still far from welcoming, but she could tell, even from where she was standing, that he was very honest in his interactions, small smiles twisting at the corners of his lips, expression enthusiastic as he and the person in front of him had an engaging discussion.

All too soon, she was the second last person in queue, still positioning herself in a way that the guy in front of her was hiding her with his body. Her stomach was a well of anxiety, her heartbeat a crush of roaring waves.

His head was bent towards his phone when she stepped up to the table. With shaking hands, she opened the book to the page with the dedication and pushed it towards him. The dilapidated condition of the book caught his attention and then the two words of the dedication, underlined with her shaky hand.

"You can make it out to Betty," she said.

With the jerk of his head, he looked up. His startled bright eyes met hers.

The world blinked and came back to life.

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 **tbc**


	2. Chapter 2

**Sooo, this took longer than I expected. I still have one more chapter planned but let's see how that goes. Enjoy!**

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"Betty-" he started, voice almost a gasp, but before he could say anything else, she interrupted him.

"Don't – don't say anything." Her chest compressed, a bludgeon of words suddenly clogging her throat. She clenched her fingers and then forced them to relax, struggling to meet his eyes. His face felt like a memory unlocked, so cherished and yet so unreachable, "I don't want to ruin your event; I –I just want to talk," she started, clutching her book to her chest to regain some semblance of control. "After you're done, could you…could you meet me in the café down the street?"

He looked stunned, flabbergasted, like he wouldn't have imagined her being there in his wildest dreams. "I-" he opened his mouth but before he could say that he couldn't come, that this wasn't the right time-

She ran.

Right out of the bookstore, right across the street, slumping onto an empty bench outside, trying to catch her breath as if she'd ran a marathon. She didn't know how long she sat there, trying to compose her jittery nerves, before she got up and walked into the café. She took a seat at the first open place, winding her hands together on top of the table, eyes flickering through the window to the storefront across the street every few seconds.

God, she was a mess, wasn't she? She didn't even give him a chance to reply, a choice to politely back out if he wanted to. She couldn't imagine how he must be feeling after she ambushed him, showing up out of the blue after three years. It was as sudden and gut-wrenching as her departure had been, and she wondered if the day would end up in the same conclusion –another three years' worth of separation, maybe more.

The familiar press of anxiety pushed against her sternum, making her feel nauseous. Even if he did show up, what was she going to _say_? She tried scrambling the words together in her head, trying to muster her scattered emotion into some semblance of a sentence, but nothing seemed right. Nothing seemed to be able to express the tangle of emotions inside her chest, guilt and grief and regret, all sewn up together into one giant knot. But she knew she had to do this today, or she would somehow convince herself to back out, to run away as she had done once before. She hadn't planned on speaking to him when she had first stepped into the bookstore, but she recognized now that there was never really any other option. There were some things that the universe couldn't see unresolved.

She had only been sitting there for about ten minutes when she saw the door being pushed open from her peripheral vision, and then he was walking in. His eyes scanned the whole room once before stopping at her, wild and uncertain. She was able observe him properly for the first time. His style hadn't much changed; he was wearing a neat, plaid button-up that leaned a little towards the formal side, paired with form-fitting jeans, and a jacket that hadn't been on his person before, now tied around his middle. His trademark suspenders were hanging from his waist and his sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, revealing forearms that now bore a little more muscle.

Everything about him was familiar and for a moment she felt like no time had passed at all. He had always carried his uniqueness around him like a coat, collars high, no pretenses, and that much hadn't changed. His whole posture was still distinctively his, the way he carried his shoulders, moved his lanky arms, walked with steps that seemed at once languid and sharp. He was the same boy she so clearly remembered, and he was the author of the new, exciting murder mystery, the role fitting to him like his crowned-hat, like a serpent sewn into the back of a leather jacket.

He stopped a few steps into doorway, frozen to the spot for a few seconds before he seemed to command his legs to move, heading towards her.

She smiled weakly as he took a seat opposite her. His face was baffled and uncertain and confused and hopeful and her heart was beating too loudly, loud enough to silence the world around her, loud enough that-

"So you've read it then," he started, eyes darting once to her copy of _Mind over Murder_ , voice devoid of any kind of inflection, just like Jellybean's had been. Now that he was in front of her, she felt like the years had made him completely anew, and for a second she struggled to reconcile this version of him with the boy who used to steal sips from her milkshakes. She was barely holding on to her composure; it was taking every ounce of her willpower to not to spontaneously start crying.

"I –I have," she began. She took a deep breathe, forcing her body to relax, and then met his eyes even though it felt like a struggle to even look at him head on. Softly, she said, "It was really good, Jug."

He nodded once, breaking his gaze and looking down at the tabletop. She suddenly flashbacked to all the times they had held hands under the table, all the times she had placed her palm against his cheek whenever he had looked as conflicted as he looked right now. For a few seconds he didn't say anything, and she opened her mouth to break the silence, but then he looked back up, voice low, "Why are you here, Betty?" His face was collected, walls up and high. "Why now?"

She had no answer and she had a thousand words ready to trip out of her lips. "I regretted running away, you know," she started, eyes flicking to the tabletop and then back towards his face. Some semblance of emotion flashed through his gaze but otherwise he showed no reaction to her words. An uneasy feeling churned in the pits of her stomach. "It was so selfish…but I wasn't okay, Jughead." She swallowed, voice slightly thicker. "And I didn't know how to deal with that."

The words felt sour coming from her mouth, a bitter truth that stained her tongue. When she had arrived at her college, she had registered herself with a therapist and had dragged herself to the small office week after week. Nothing had changed at first –she still felt as screwed up she had been when she had first shown up- and it was months until she had felt like things were progressing, months until she had let herself forget, let herself release the numbness that she had gotten used to carrying around like a third arm.

"And now?" he said, quieter than before. Even though he was actively trying not to show it, she could detect the slightest hint of concern layering his question, and that small sign lifted her heart. "Are you better now?"

"I am," she said sincerely. She paused, gathering a beat of courage. "And I'm sorry. For –for everything."

The apology felt superficial even to her own ears. It was going to take a lot more than that to even start to express the amount of guilt she had stored up inside her, the quiet remorse that had dulled over the years but had only collected higher over time.

He nodded again, but even that felt perfunctory, like something he was just supposed to do. He cleared his throat, avoiding her gaze. "I waited for you to call, you know," he started, eyes trained on his own fingers that were drumming a silent irregular rhythm against the tabletop. She felt her stomach drop, already knowing where the sentence was heading. "Last October. Veronica called me –she was so excited that you had finally reached out. She thought you would've contacted me first so she immediately called me right after you hung up. I told her that you hadn't called yet…but I was still excited, despite myself. I kept my phone in my hand the whole day. Then Archie called, and then Kevin. But not you. I waited for a whole week before I finally realized that you weren't going to."

His words cut, a thing blade silently twisting into her insides. He must have seen the misery on her face because he immediately looked guilty, and then a bit indignant because he wasn't the one who was supposed to be feeling guilty in the first place. Last October was the first time she had contacted her friends after she had cut off all ties when she had run away. There was a hollowness in her chest where they had all once taken space, and even though she had been ready to talk to them for a while then, she hadn't known how to do it. Just like now, she had been so afraid. Afraid that they'd be angry, that they would refuse to talk to her even though it was what she had done to them.

But last October, there was one morning where everything was hazy outside her window, the world closing down upon in her a storm of dark clouds and flashes of lightning. And she had been so tired of missing them, curled up in her dorm room, the storm outside making her forget about the rest of the world still spinning. She had been flipping through pictures of all of them in her phone and suddenly the ache inside her chest was too much to bear. She closed the photo app, pulling up her contacts, fingers hovering over his name for the longest while before she scrolled past, reaching the contact that was still saved as V beside an emoji of two girls holding hands. She pressed the screen hard and put the phone against her ear.

Veronica was so elated and so hurt, but an hour later when she finally hung up, Betty felt like she had gotten her best friend back and she couldn't stop smiling. Once again, she had hovered for far too long on Jughead's name before she had decided to call Archie instead, heart still full even though she knew she was stalling. And then she had called Kevin. And after he too had hung up, she once again stared at Jughead's contact on her phone, willing her fingers to move. His name was saved simply as it was but there was a single red heart next to it and the more she stared at the heart the more her chest hurt, and then she had closed her phone, pushing it under her pillow. Tomorrow. She would do it tomorrow.

Tomorrow had of course never come.

"I-" she blinked once, forcefully halting back the tears that were pushing against her eyes. "There's nothing I can say to excuse how I hurt you, Jughead. I didn't know what to say –I…I still don't know what to say." She took a small calming breath. "But I know I want to talk now. I know I want to make it right, however much I can."

He was still staring downwards and she almost wanted him to tell him to look up. He scratched a nail against the chipped edge of the table and at that moment, she would've given anything to know what was going on inside his head. Even after all this time, she was unused to seeing him so closed off to her; she was unused to having no clue of what was going on inside his head.

"You can't just go back," he said tightly. He finally looked back up and there was a storm in his eyes that contradicted the stillness to his voice. "Saying you want to make it right doesn't change the fact that you disappeared for three whole years and even when you decided to get back in touch, you called every single person that meant a damn to you-" he stopped abruptly, his next words small and quiet. "-except me."

A small tear slipped out of the corner of her eye that she hastily wiped away. The emotion that his words conjured up inside her were slippery and unbridled, rising up in waves that threatened to overcome every logical part of her brain. "I didn't know what to say to you," she said again but this time her voice was trembling. Sitting there in front of him, she was quickly unraveling. She pushed the heels of her palms against her watery eyes, her chest feeling too heavy to even breathe. "You don't know what I felt during those days, Jughead," she started, voice thick and heavy. "Nothing –I felt nothing. Something was so wrong with me. I looked at you, I looked at everyone around me, and I felt nothing."

His fingers, which had been constantly fidgeting over the table, stopped. He looked pained at her confession but some part of him was still trying to hold on to his anger, clutching on to it like it was kite about to be blown away with the wind. "I knew you weren't okay," he said with feeling, the steel gone from his voice. Even though he was still upset, he was slowly returning to color in front of her eyes, more like the boy that she had left and less like the one that had greeted her moments ago. "Do you think I couldn't tell? God, it was like you were disappearing in front of my eyes." He closed his eyes briefly as if remembering. "And all I could think of was that we were losing –we spent more than two years overcoming everything, the civil war, the serpents, and just when it was all supposed to be better –we lost."

It was she who had lost. She who had abandoned the fight. "I'm sorry," she whispered once more, and it was really all that she could say.

His anger finally melted, the pain and resignation settling heavily around his shoulders. He sighed deeply and after a long pause he finally said, "I know it wasn't your fault."

She gave a short, sad nod.

Ironically, it had all went down just two weeks before she was supposed to leave for Columbia. They had almost gotten through the whole summer, just almost. The Coopers, as dysfunctional as they were, were somehow managing. Ever since the twins were born, things had been…different. Not better per say, but certainly different. Her parents' issues were pushed a bit to the side in midst the hustle of caring for two babies at once, and even though past grievances were forgotten, there was always an issue waiting to be addressed that no Cooper was willing to bring up. Her mother's perfectionist streak had worsened, if that were even possible, but most of her attention now was focused on Polly and the babies. Their bottles weren't sterilized properly; Polly's swaddling technique hadn't gotten better; she wasn't feeding the twins enough; she was feeding the twins too much.

And that wasn't the only problem. After the first big blowout, things between her parents hadn't actually gotten better. They were both masters of pretending otherwise, but even then, sarcastic comments slipped out, the silence between them always carrying an icy undertone. And Betty was stuck in between, in the center of an opposite of a hurricane. She had taken to spending more and more time away from home, whether it was her numerous extra-curriculars, or wasting the evening away at Pop's with Jughead and the others. Even then, the crescents inside her palms were now no more than scars, remnants of time where she had been even worse off.

That was perhaps why the day had caught her so off-guard. When her parents' hushed arguing voices had reached her room early in the morning, she wasn't really surprised. There would be a few passive-aggressive comments, a few side-eye glares and maybe an interjection of Polly's 'the twins are listening!', but eventually they would all settle into all too familiar silence, a silence so thick that she was pretty sure that it had begun to inhabit the walls around their dining table, that it had sunk into the small gaps between the tiles and traveled straight down into the foundation of the house.

But that day, the hushed whispers didn't die down like they were supposed to. They accelerated into harsh, sharp words, and then into proper shouts, with Polly screaming in between telling them to shut up. Now that Betty thought of it, she didn't even fully remember what the argument had been about. She had heard something about her recently discovered older brother, and then a few words about a secretly published Register article, and then perplexedly something about the house mortgage. She was slowly making her way down the stairs, already cringing, when she had heard the words 'filthy Blossoms' come out of her father's mouth. There was a beat of shocked silence and then the regular summer morning had finally imploded.

A shatter of glass sounded through the air, an almost literal personification of what was about to follow. One of the twins- Iris began to cry, a shrill shriek that reverberated through her eardrums, alerting Betty to action. She had never ran so quickly down the stairs, almost tripping over the steps, heart lodged so firmly in her throat, she was sure she wasn't breathing. By the time she reached the last step, she had already made sense of the scene that met her eyes, and yet she was sure that she couldn't understand what was happening at all.

Shards of glass were glittering across the polished marble floors, and between the powdered debris sat little Iris, face bloodied where a large piece of jagged glass was lodged deep into her right cheek. Just behind the wailing toddler stood Betty's father, shell-shocked, the intended target. And on the other side of the room was Alice Cooper, the hand that had thrown the glass at her husband still trembling in mid-air.

Polly's cry was what once again sent everything to motion. All at once, everyone rushed towards the injured toddler, Polly disregarding her bare feet and stepping directly onto the shattered remains of the glass to scoop up the little girl in her arms. As both of her parents meant to come forwards, she tucked the little girl deeper into her body, "Stay away!" she screamed, "Stay away from her, both of you!"

Betty's hands were trembling as she dialed 911. She only remembers snapshots after that. Picking up JJ from the floor where he too had started to sob; the wail of the ambulance; Archie and Fred running across the street and into the house; Polly's feet making a bloodied mosaic on the floor. Polly and the twins were escorted into the ambulance but Betty couldn't be in the same car as her parents. Not that day.

Archie drove her to the hospital where JJ was once again placed into her arms as both Iris and Polly were escorted into different rooms, even though Polly was in a panic about being separated from her daughter. By the time JJ stopped crying against her neck, Jughead and Veronica were there too, concern shining across both their faces. Jughead took a seat beside her in the waiting area, and when JJ finally fell asleep with his little head lolling across her shoulder, he reached across her lap and took one of her hands in his.

She remembered blinking, as if she couldn't make sense of what had just happened.

Three days later, Polly packed up her stuff and left for one of Nana Blossoms' cottages in a small suburb outside of Chicago. She didn't bring the twins into the house again, choosing to stay with Cheryl until the necessary arrangements for her departure had been made. At night Betty lay awake in her bed, staring at her ceiling. She had gotten so used to having her sister back, it seemed unreal that the room besides hers was empty once again, that the twins' toys were no longer strewn across the house, that Polly hadn't even come back to say goodbye before she had left. Instead Betty had gotten a text message. Barely a sentence. But then again, Betty understood.

The glass had cut so deep into Iris's face that she had to immediately be taken into surgery. The procedure was successful but behind the layers of gauze and tape that had covered the little girl's face the next day, was a gash so big, it could only fade into a scar. A scar that she would carry with her for the rest of her life.

Her parents' mistake had permanently branded a two-year-old's face.

It didn't seem like a surprise then that Polly didn't want anything to do with anyone whose name ended with Cooper, briefly including Betty too. Really, Betty understood.

But that didn't mean it hurt any less when three of the most important people in Betty's life suddenly disappeared. The Cooper family was finally permanently broken, the house now an empty echo that had once been filled with the sound of the twins crying, and babbling, and crashing into random pieces of furniture. Her parents were having a hard time looking at each other, let alone Betty or anyone else.

The day after Polly's departure, Betty's dad left the house too and never came back. Her mother informed her that they were getting a divorce, and much like she had done with the events of the previous days, Betty only nodded. It was the logical step. It should've happened ages ago. It was the right thing to do.

She was in her room when Jughead had snuck in a few hours later. The concern on his face was almost palpable and when he gently sat beside her on the bed, she rested her head on his shoulder and he tucked her underneath his arm. She told him about Polly's text message and then about the divorce, expecting herself to start crying within a few seconds. But even though her eyes hurt and there was a heavy pressure building up at the edge of her skull, the tears wouldn't come. It only made her more frustrated, like the sadness was building up at the back of her head and her eyes were a dam that just wouldn't let it through.

When she went to sleep, Jughead was still with her. When she woke up, he was gone. And when she stepped outside her room, everything once again changed.

She should've known something was wrong when it was past ten o'clock in the morning and Alice Cooper still hadn't woken up. But Betty didn't think much of it considering the fact that her mother's life too had imploded pretty epically in the past week. She was after all only human too –she was allowed off days.

Betty only figured out something was amiss when she knocked a few times on her parents' bedroom door and her mother still didn't get up. She gently pushed open the door to find Alice Cooper sprawled over her side of the bed, still asleep. Quietly, she padded into the carpeted room, stopping before the bed, and reaching out a hand to lightly shake her mother's shoulder. She knew Alice –one shake should've been enough for her to bolt upright in bed.

But she didn't. With her gut already sinking, Betty tried harder. "Mom," she put both her hands on her mother's shoulders. "Mom, wake up."

But still Alice did not budge. Did not even show the slightest sign of consciousness. And that's when Betty noticed the multiple prescription bottles on her mother's bedside table. None of them had been emptied but all of them had been opened, and Betty's hands were already shaking as she grabbed her mother's wrist, feeling for a pulse.

She found one, and that was the only thing that kept her standing, that kept her from completely breaking apart. For the second time that week, she dialed for an ambulance.

And for the second time that week, her friends found her at the hospital. She remembered Jughead holding her face between his palms, the feel of his callouses against her cheeks, the antiseptic smell of the room around them that was rapidly becoming familiar. "Betty," he was saying. "Betty, baby, look at me."

She pressed her hands against his chest, curling her fingers into his shirt.

Then the doctor was there and he had questions that made her head spin, that made her feel like she didn't know her mother at all.

How long has Mrs. Cooper been taking medicine for chronic depression? How regularly does she take performance enhancing drugs? Has her behavior ever been erratic? Are there days when she just seems off? Does she has trouble sleeping without pills? Are you sure she has been prescribed her medication by a certified medical practitioner?

After a while, when her father had shown up, and a proper diagnosis had been made, they told her that her mother didn't really have a drug problem. It was a fluke, a one-time accident –she had just accidentally mixed together medication that shouldn't have been mixed. But as Betty sat by her mother's hospital bed, looking at her pasty skin and the bags under her eyes that seemed to have appeared over-night, she wasn't sure if she believed them.

It was decided that her mother would go live with Betty's aunt for a while after she was discharged from the hospital. Betty already had a faint idea that 'a while' wasn't as short a time frame as her father was making it out to be. He was still bailing, he still wasn't coming back and he made it sound like the incident with Iris had been her mother's fault. The anger that the statement smarted inside Betty was sudden and visceral –how dare he insinuate that he didn't have a hand in the whole mess when his disgustingly spat 'filthy Blossoms' was still echoing around inside her head?

When her mother woke up, she wouldn't meet Betty's eyes. And when she was being discharged from the hospital and Betty's aunt was waiting outside to take her away, she looked at Betty like she was her last salvation. Betty hugged her mother's thin frame against her chest, feeling Alice's guilt seeping through her fingertips, suffusing tangibly into the air around them. She didn't know if she would ever be ready to forgive her mother; she didn't know if she already had.

Betty stayed with Veronica for the five days she had left before she had to leave for New York. Veronica was moving to Chicago a week later, accompanied by Kevin, and the night before Betty's departure, they had all planned one last get together. One last night with the best friends they had ever had, one last night of freedom before they were condemned to the responsibilities of semi-adult life. Suddenly thinking about sitting there squished together into one booth at Pop's, talking and laughing like her life hadn't imploded in front of her eyes seemed too much. Too much to bear. Too much like standing in a downpour while your body burned with thirst, too much like heartbreak and betrayal and all other things that were bound to break.

So the night before, she snuck out of the Lodge's place and drove to the trailer park. There, besides Jughead in his bed, she held his body against hers, trying to infuse some part of him into her skin. She told him that she loved him and when he was too busy with the skin of her neck to murmur it back, she pulled his face away from her body and looked into his eyes.

"Tell me you love me."

He pushed his forehead against hers, looking at her through hooded eyes, so soft and so sincere. "I love you."

At dawn, she got up and sneaked back outside, shooting her friends one last text message. She got into her car, all her stuff already packed in the trunk, and drove away. The Welcome to Riverdale! sign was the only thing that bade her goodbye.

Now, sitting across from him, Betty felt like she was spinning in all the memories that she had spent the last three year trying to shun, sifting through all the running, and the laughter, and the heartbreak, all the overwhelming amount of _feeling_. She wanted to tell him about who she was and who she had become, but most of all, she wanted to know him once again, to understand him, to know how different he was from the boy back in her memories and whether she could recognize that version of him in the one who was sitting in front of her right now.

She just didn't know how to start.

He took the leap for her, looking nervous and awkward but _willing_ , and that was all that she could really ask for. "I heard you finally went back to Riverdale during Christmas break," he started. Now that he was no longer visibly angry, he was curious, and that put her more at ease.

"Yeah," she replied with a small smile. "My mom decided to move back and take charge of the Register once again. We don't have our house anymore but she got a nice little apartment near the office." She looked down at her hands nervously, hesitating for a second. "I hoped I would see you there, you know, even if I didn't call in October."

He nodded shortly, looking like he didn't know how to respond. "Yeah…I decided to stay back. Things with the book were just wrapping up."

Slowly, the conversation progressed. They talked about what they were studying in their respective universities; they talked about his book; they talked about their new friends and their old friends, and where they all were. She told him about the twins, so much more grown up now, and he talked about Jellybean, how difficult it had been to get to know her once again, to feel that closeness they had once shared in their childhood. Slowly, slowly, the relaxed, until Betty could feel her heart unfurling, finally releasing everything she had never learned to let go.

They didn't talk about anything deeper –just perfunctory level stuff of two people trying to reconnect. And she was okay with that. She would be okay with whatever type of friends he wanted them to be, if they could just be a part of each other's lives once again.

Just more than an hour and a half later, Jughead's phone buzzed against the table. He glanced at it in passing, before he picked it up and swiped against the screen, "It's Jellybean," he said. He seemed to realize the time. "I should get going, I think."

They got up and there was a moment where they both looked at each other, not knowing where things were going to go from there. But she had already spent too much time hesitating. "I'm really glad you decided to talk to me today, Juggie." Unconsciously, the old nickname spilled out, but she made no move to take it back. She smiled and she found that it was easy and genuine –she felt lighter than she had in ages. "I really hope we can be friends again. It felt wrong, not having you in my life."

His eyes were impossibly blue and impossibly honest. "Yeah," he admitted, scuffing a shoe against the tiles. He seemed to deliberate for a moment and then quietly he said, "I'm glad you're back Betts."

Before she could change her mind, she reached forwards and hugged him, winding her arms across his neck like she had done a thousand times before. This was the only time he was caught off guard though, but he hesitated for only a single second before his arms were winding around her waist, and the embrace was too tight for two people who had three years between them, too real and too full of everything, _everything_. "Me too," she whispered.

After a long time, everything was once again beginning to feel right.

* * *

 **tbc**


End file.
